Guide to lock GPU Clock for AMD NAVI Users (5600xt/ 5700/ 5700xt)

Hello!

Most of you were facing low FPS during non GPU intensive games, stutters, idle GPU clocks during gameplay and other things which you don't want to see your Navi GPU doing when playing games.

I've found a way to prevent Navi GPUs from down-clocking during games no matter how high is GPU load for AMD NAVI Users (5600Xt, 5700, 5700xt).

The fix to lock GPU down-clocking is quite simple. Please read through the guide and refer to to the linked pic as an example.

Please note - i'm using AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 20.4.2 Beta driver. I haven't tested this on other versions.

The frequency set for each power state needs to be within 50 Mhz of each other, but not lower than a value of 10 Mhz (and not the same frequency as this will cause a driver lock or crash and revert). This will lock your GPU clock. Your GPU will no-longer down-clock, regardless of utilisation.

You need your voltage to be the same for the 3 power states in Wattman

Don't touch memory overclocking or the power tuning section - this will produce stutters and your memory frequency will fluctuate.. Edit your fan curve to ensure adequate cooling and you're good to go.

Refer to the linked image as an example. Choose a frequency and voltage that works for you ( and one that's stable etc )

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h80hs035jylfbhz/New%20Bitmap%20Image.bmp?dl=0

Any questions let me know

I run my RX5700xt at 1924 MHz - it still boosts to 2150 MHz but never goes under 1924 MHz now.

BTW any NAVI user should be running the D912Dxpy with GW2. The performance bump is large... https://github.com/megai2/d912pxy

Enjoy !

is this safe for a n00b to do?

Hi, you can select a more conservative gpu clock if you like following the same process in the guide. If you have any issues you can reset settings in both wattman and afterburner

@Regimentz.3471 said:is this safe for a n00b to do?Changing voltages with a 3rd party progam like Afterburner is never safe. You should know what you are doing when touching voltages.

If you want to minimize the risk of damaging hardware then use Wattman which limits you to very moderate voltage regulations. It's pretty much impossible to damage your GPU with Wattman (which is not surprising as AMD would be stupid when they would give their customers a tool to destroy their GPUs).

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Regimentz.3471 said:is this safe for a n00b to do?Changing voltages with a 3rd party progam like Afterburner is never safe. You should know what you are doing when touching voltages.

That's incorrect. Voltage limitations are built in the card's Vbios..... Neither Afterburner or Wattman can go over this limit .....

Cheers bro this worked a treat for me ! All i did was set the frequency 50Mhz difference between each power state and make the voltage identical for them.No more down-clocking and fluctuating speeds.

You're the only person that's come up with a solution to this and iv'e been searching for a fix since i got my 5700 last year !!!!!

Cheers Mack, I just bought today a Sapphire 5600XT Pulse, hope it'll do just fine with these tweaks + the new vbios that pumps it up in performance almost to 5700XT.

@"Gundahar.2765" said:Cheers Mack, I just bought today a Sapphire 5600XT Pulse, hope it'll do just fine with these tweaks + the new vbios that pumps it up in performance almost to 5700XT.

No worries mate hope it works well for you.

If you're really interested in some tweaking you can have a look at the More Power Tool over at Igor's Lab https://www.igorslab.de/en/morepowertool-amd-radeon-rx-5700-and-rx-5700-xt-tweaking-and-overclocking-software/I'd only recommend this if you're experienced with bios tweaking and flashing though as you can damage/brick your card. Does your Sapphire 5600XT have a back-up bios switch ?

@Mack.3045I hope so too. Yes there is a bios switch, and also came out with the new vbios version, its the latest manufacturing series I just noticed yesterday, lucky me. Haven't tried any tweaking yet, I probably will today, I'll post feedback.

@Gundahar.2765 said:@"Mack.3045"I hope so too. Yes there is a bios switch, and also came out with the new vbios version, its the latest manufacturing series I just noticed yesterday, lucky me. Haven't tried any tweaking yet, I probably will today, I'll post feedback.

On a side note. Have you heard of a band called Heilung ? You might enjoy listening to Alfadhirhaiti ! It will make your Norn blood boil with battle-lust :+1:

By the looks of it, the card itself doesn't need any tweaking, its already OC, but I installed d912pxy and I can see a noticeable difference in frame consitency. Pretty neat.For anyone that plans to buy a 5600XT, go for Sapphire, make sure it has OC mentioned in the specs or OC sticker on the box. Unlike 5700XT, 5600XT doesn't need undervolting especially if its OC, nor any kind of wattman tweaking, also the driver has no issues anymore, its basically plug and play. However, I do recommend proper driver settings: https://i.imgur.com/h36nq6h.png

Yes I know Heilung, Danheim is also good, I like my norse pagan music when I game.

LATER EDIT: I just realized today how garbage is gw2 engine and optimization in contrast with what 2020 games have to offer. I played AC Odyssey with everything on max, EVERYTHING. 108 fps, almost 0 spikes (4 fps the most) or microstutters.Even if i get 90 fps average in gw2 with most settings on high, the fps spikes are too often and huge. We are talking 150 up to 63 down. Not very good. Microstutters here and there when the screen is clustered.Even so, ANet managed to squiz the most of its engine, so thats a kudos, can't lie.

On a side note. I've been trialling the new 20.5.1 Beta HWS Radeon Adrenaline Driver as it adds support for GPU Hardware Scheduling in Windows 2004.It reportedly reduces latency although i'm too lazy to run tests to confirm. @Gundahar.2765 have you tried it yet ?

Yes I did, it works wonders on my 5600 XT. But now with the new GW2 updates, dx912pxy doesn't work, makes my game crash. Hopefully it will be solved soon, theres others experiencing the same issue.

Do you happen to cap your framerate @Mack.3045 ?

@Shao.7236 said:Do you happen to cap your framerate @Mack.3045 ?

Heya Shao I fought your condi rev with the Japanese name ?. I leave it uncapped as I'm gaming on a 165Hz 1440p freesync monitor

@Gundahar.2765 said:Yes I did, it works wonders on my 5600 XT. But now with the new GW2 updates, dx912pxy doesn't work, makes my game crash. Hopefully it will be solved soon, theres others experiencing the same issue.

V2.2 is already out with the crashfix ?

Afaik, unless it's a new problem with Navi, most GPU clocks don't need to be locked up because they adjust to the load accordingly kinda like Intel Speedstep. Used to have Vega with ClockBlocker and it wouldn't do anything to fix the issues I thought I had. It was more of a driver problem, letting the clock be at it's maximum simply makes the load % appear lower.

Yes was me, getting used to the recent changes. They're pretty rough and not well thought.

Yeh Navi users tried clock blocker to no avail when the cards released. This specifically correlates to issues across the board with Navi and is widely reported. Thank goodness we have the d912pxy which fixes the subpar dx9 optimisation for Navi and we can now make use of that horsepower due to the asynchronous rendering in the dx12 api (Asynchronous shading and multithreading)

The clock locking is purely a performance fix and for those wanting to squeeze out more frames, completey optional ?

@Mack.3045 said:Yeh Navi users tried clock blocker to no avail when the cards released. This specifically correlates to issues across the board with Navi and is widely reported. Thank goodness we have the d912pxy which fixes the subpar dx9 optimisation for Navi and we can now make use of that horsepower due to the asynchronous rendering in the dx12 api (Asynchronous shading and multithreading)This has nothing to do with navi and DX9. DX9 games run fine with navi.

It's all the GW2 engine. FreeSync does also not work in this game (it works but occasionally stops to do so and you have to restart the game) - with any GPU! I haven't seen such behaviour in any other game. Injectors (sweetfx, reshade...) have also a history of incompatibilities with GW2.

It's just an old trash engine with lots of flaws and non standard feature implementaions, that cause tons of driver issues.

The fact that a wrapper like D912PXY improves the performance at all, is already a big joke. A wrapper is by definition a compatibility tool at the cost of performance, because it adds an additional translation layer for the code (this HAS TO cost performance!). If a wrapper actually improves performance, then the dev has messed up his game engine by huge amounts.

d912pxy actually helps me with framedrops, removing them almost completly... almost... because in dense populated areas I can still feel them a little.Its so ironic that the game seems so versatile in its gameplay, its almost unique amongst others, yet its one of the trashiest enginewise. Shame, this happens when works of passion turn into nothing but a source of income, corporatist style.

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Mack.3045 said:Yeh Navi users tried clock blocker to no avail when the cards released. This specifically correlates to issues across the board with Navi and is widely reported. Thank goodness we have the d912pxy which fixes the subpar dx9 optimisation for Navi and we can now make use of that horsepower due to the asynchronous rendering in the dx12 api (Asynchronous shading and multithreading)This has nothing to do with navi and DX9. DX9 games run fine with navi.

Freesync works fine for me with GW2 whether using native dx9, dxvk or d912pxy.Never had issues there.

There's a few other dx9 games that have issues with Navi so it's driver level. I reported the issues to amd last year after purchase of the card. Dxvk is for compatibility Philip the dev has advised its competitive with native dx9 on windows, d912pxy is for performance. I'm not a c++ programmer but I know megai hasn't spent 1700+ hours developing and improving the d912pxy if it didn't provide a performance gain. Definately agree the Gw2 engine leaves a lot to be desired!

A quick update. I can confirm this method of locking the GPU clock-speed is still working fine with the latest AMD Radeon Adrenalin 20.8.2 Beta.